Even more than yesterday's variants, some of my favorites are here.
Shadow Flower is my go to Sunflower for the target range. I've seen people say that she's simply better than stock as she has no disadvantage to counter her faster fire rate as she's not all that different in damage and dispersion, but I don't have the data to say, and I've never felt she was oppressive to fight against.
Sky Trooper is my boy! Absolute favorite foot soldier from any of the games. The sound and speed of fire of his Danger Zone weapon makes me happy. Just wish that he didn't lose his ZPG visual indicator on his back in GW2 when its ready and fires with the missile appearing and being fired off that he had in GW. Love this guy.
I love Zoologist's porcupine (hedgehog) weapon that fires its quills and grow back when reloading. And of course that meerkat (I think) that pops out of his hair, but this is one of the rare times I see the argument against variants, as he feels like he's overshadowed by both the Chemist and the Marine Biologist. That being said, I still like this character. Maybe rework him with some kind of gimmick to differentiate him from the others? Like maybe the barbs do a little less damage but they leave a DoT on the target?
Hockey Star is an oddball as he fires stinky gloves that look toxic, but don't actually have toxic effects. They also gave him a much needed buff in GW2 as he used to overheat insanely fast, making him one of the worst All-Stars before. Ever since that patch, he's a lot better and less frustrating to play.
Baseball Star has always been just alright for me. Not a bad character at all, but I've always preferred other All-Stars most of the time. Still, I'll play him with no problem, as I tend to switch all over the roster.
Golf Star is the sniper of the All-Stars. His vocalizations are like you say, unique and on a sidenote, one thing I don't like about BfN (minor though this is), is the fact that the All-Star doesn't do those vocalizations, which I miss.
I believe they went and nerfed both Kernel Corn and Foot Soldier in BfN as they were such good all-rounders before in GW2 (and GW for the soldier), and they wanted to keep their jack-of-all-trades idea but rein them in a bit. The BfN rapid fire upgrade for soldier is weird too, it's uneven as it speeds up and slows down for no apparent reason, yet is almost required in multiplayer, as it's that good. Soldier does overall feel better to play than corn in BfN though, although husk hop is still very powerful.
@Iron_Guard8I think people take a shadow flower having potential to be better and just think that automatically makes her better when in reality she has problems at range and her own firerate can work against her. This applies to sky trooper too who in the right hands can outperforms stock but also comes with his weaknesses that most people often ignore when talking about them like baseball arguably has the best all star dps besides stock but he's often regarded as being in the middle of the variants for the character despite his potential.
Zoologist is good but it wouldn't hurt if he had a tiny bit more of any edge against his peers, though it's nice that Chester got a replacement unlike citrus.
Hockey star is a oddball but it's good to see that gw2 buffed as like you say he overheated far too quickly. Once again gw2 actually did a really good job at balancing the gw1 cast by making the the worst variants actually good.
Baseball star is actually my least played all star. I don't dislike him but I simply find other all stars more interesting.
The removal of variants in Bfn took away so many unique animations, voicelines, and effects that I feel everyone takes for granted. Looking back to back between the games and seeing how popcap could do 6 imp reloads in gw2 perfectly than absolutely flunk at just doing 1 for the stock imp in bfn hurts me on another level. They even removed the regular sunflower sounds and replaced them with stuffy.
They were such nice parallels in gw2 but they really fall apart in bfn since soldier's abilities are so much better and with upgrades get boosted to such a ridiculous degree above corns. The rapid fire like you say is also very inconsistent.
